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Browse published articles attributed to Yol Swan, with full-archive search.
Extraordinary times, like the ones we are currently living, tend to bring out the best and the worst in everyone. Tendencies, beliefs, and even decisions get easily polarized because there are forces at hand that push us to make tough choices—about relationships, work, finances, health, and social issues.
We have all been equipped with an internal compass to navigate the complexities of our physical reality. It is by far the most sophisticated and valuable tool you could have possibly asked for. From making difficult decisions regarding a moral dilemma to knowing how to treat others, your inner compass points toward the most energy efficient and effective response and course of action. Trusting your inner compass will inevitably guide you toward being the best that you can be. So what and where is this inner compass?
How tolerant do you consider yourself? And how much of your true feelings and needs do you sacrifice in the name of tolerance? If you look it up on the dictionary, tolerance is filled with positive definitions and intolerance only with negative descriptions.
I was whipping cream the other day for some lovely strawberries I had purchased at the market, and as I was concentrated on my task I started thinking about how similar some things in life are to this chu ing process. You start whisking the liquid cream and maintain a certain pace as it slowly becomes thicker and thicker, until it eventually changes its consistency to a rich, foamy, fluffy cream. You don't know when this is going to happen, so you just have to be patient and keep stirring. More importantly, you cannot push or force the process.
Andrea (not her real name) came to see me because she was having a conflict regarding career choices. Her family had supported her through law school, but she had always dreamed of becoming a professional musician; she had started guitar lessons a few years back and was now enjoying being able to play with her friends.
One of my mottos is, Hold fast to your vision, regardless of what is going on around you, because you need the power of your vision to transform your perception and your current reality. When you truly stop believing (and living) in the past (i.e., past experiences, beliefs, thoughts, traumas, etc.), and instead you appreciate the things and thoughts that bring you joy in the present moment, you begin to pave the way toward a brighter and more fulfilling future.
It is amazing how many people are on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications nowadays. What is even more surprising is how many of them are teens and young adults who get diagnosed and put on drugs for the long haul. After antibiotics, the most common prescriptions are for antidepressants, and it is believed that depression is caused by low levels of chemical neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, or norepinephrine.
Feminine energies are becoming stronger than ever, both in a regenerative sense (Mother Earth re-balancing and re-shaping things) and in the awareness and sense of community and connection that global changes bring about.
There is a choice before us, whether we are conscious of it or not, and as the old structures continue to collapse, the battle for the dominion of our energy is becoming more intensely obvious. This is the year to make a clear decision about the direction of your life: will you maintain the old fear-based beliefs and emotional wounds or will you move toward new, more creative and expansive paradigms?
At the beginning of the year, I encouraged my readers to pick one word to focus their attention on and energize with affirmations throughout the year, as opposed to making a typical list of New Year’s Resolutions.
Meditation is the practice of bringing your mind inward by focusing the attention on a single object in total concentration. Since it is the nature of the mind to continuously create thoughts and keep your attention jumping from one thing to the next, single-pointed concentration is essential for meditation to happen. However, over time, the effort and perseverance of daily meditation practice will pay off, as the thought waves will diminish and your mind will become calm and quiet. Why Meditate?
Do you remember how the promise of a better world got you excited when everyone was expecting December 2012 to change everything and mark the beginning of a brighter future? Now we look around and see what’s going on in the world, how much suffering and misery most of the population is going through, and we wonder if anything is really changing. Are we really moving forward or it is just a collective illusion we want to believe in?
Everyone is aware now that December 21st, 2012 marks the end of the Mayan calendar. Not only has this information become mainstream; it has provoked apocalyptic fears, doomsday books and films, and even triggered outbreaks of panic in Russia and France, as reported in a recent New York Times article. It has also brought much joy and hope to those, like me, who don’t believe that 12/21/12 will mark the end of the world, but the beginning of a New Earth, a new humanity, and—if you’ve watched my brief video about this—freedom from the prison-like 3rd dimension on this planet.
We live in a fast-paced world that is continuously bombarding us with messages of lack, imperfection, disease, suffering, and fear, while at the same time we are expected to accomplish everything quickly; in turn, we have come to expect to get immediate results and instant gratification. We want a quick fix for our problems, our financial situation, and even our spiritual evolution. But as one of my beloved teachers used to say, “the road to enlightenment is not a highway.” I think that this also holds true for anything valuable in life.
Creativity is usually defined as the ability to produce something worthwhile, meaningful, and original—a literary or artistic work, a solution to a problem, an innovative product, a scientific discovery, or even a good joke. Obviously, what may be considered new and valuable will vary depending on the cultural and social context, as well as on the timing of its delivery. We know of great artists and visionaries whose brilliance was ignored while they were alive, only to be re-discovered many years after their death.
Do you see all the abundance around you? How many trees and flowers and birds and blades of grass can you count? There is abundance everywhere! And yet most of us fail to see and allow it into our experience because we tend to focus on what is wrong, what is missing, or what we don’t have—our attention is on the multitude of unfulfilled desires that our senses continuously produce and the exte al world reinforces.
If you have ever attempted to sit in meditation, you know how challenging it can be. The mind rushes from one thought to the next, taking you from past to future events and back, in a relentless chatter; the body goes from one discomfort to another, and even the slightest exte al noise grabs your attention. Before you know it, you are so distracted by your thought processes that meditation seems not only impossible but also a futile endeavor.
Ana (not her real name*) came to see me because she was having second thoughts about her job and relationship and was looking for direction. She had the desire to switch to a holistic career and had taken some reiki classes. She also remembered being able to see people’s auras when she was a kid and was looking for someone to show her how to tap into her intuition and psychic abilities.
We are just beginning the Year of the Water Snake in the Chinese zodiac, and this also happens to be the first year of rebirth for humanity. What does this mean within the context of the Divine Feminine regaining power and Mother Earth shifting to a higher dimension?
The end of a year usually brings about new hopes, aspirations and resolutions for the New Year that’s about to start. Some of us review what we’ve done during the past 12 months and re-evaluate where we’re headed, to decide whether we should continue walking the path we are on or shift gears and direction. Others make lists of goals they want to accomplish.
I recently watched Girl Rising, which is a movie about nine girls from nine different developing countries sharing personal stories of poverty, discrimination, and suffering, while trying to find a way through education to rise above the constraints imposed by their culture and environment. Although somewhat intense, the film is really beautifully made.
The path of self-awareness is not a highway. It is a long, slow process of uncovering and emerging; of discovering and nurturing; of expressing and releasing. In our rush to get where we think we want to get, we forget that our purpose here is to experience the world in human form and then also become aware of our experience.
As we are moving into a higher dimension, a lot of questions arise as to how this process is manifesting and how we can all respond and help with what many call the ascension. It is important to understand that we are shifting into 5th dimension, and to do so from we’re are at, we must first go through the 4th dimension, which can bring much confusion into our reality, as we witness the transformation of what many perceive as “modern evils,” as well as the way things have been for thousands of years—the predominantly unbalanced masculine status quo.
We know that we cannot control life, but how we respond to life’s events makes a huge difference between feeling like a victim of circumstances and embracing how powerful we truly are as co-creators of our reality. I would like to share my own process here to illustrate what I’ve been writing about lately regarding the rising feminine energies, especially since today’s powerful Blue Moon urges us all to see beyond the veils of the world to bring in a higher vision of what is possible for each of us and on planet Earth.
Most people fail to understand the true meaning of abundance and power. In the modern world, power has become a synonym for wealth and we have been trained to believe that abundance is just money, since we are used to exchanging our time for it. The old saying that "time is money" has been ingrained in our minds.
Any time we make a decision, especially one that involves inner changes, our own resistance shows up to try to deter us from taking action. It’s the inertial energy or the “ghost of the-way-things-were” before we made the decision to change or to move in a different direction. And it manifests as opposition from others, obstacles, delays, sudden life drama, or anything that seems to be “out of our control,” and clearly distracting us from what we’re supposed to do to follow through with our decision.
In the Jewish tradition, the New Year is received with a time of introspection and reflection to take stock of the previous year before moving into the new one. This is done during the first ten days, starting with Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur. These are commonly known as the Days of Awe or the Days of Repentance.
Now that all the “end-of-the-world” fear mongering and marketing is behind us, we can step into 2013 with greater clarity and purpose. Granted, this is just the beginning of a new cycle in the calendar of our New Humanity, and it may not be possible to foresee how it will all unfold, but as the new year begins, we can always make a choice as to what we want to focus on and envision for ourselves and the New Earth.
I didn’t believe in God as a kid. I grew up in a religious culture where God was supposed to be this omniscient authority figure who had a say in how you should behave, and who would punish you for all ete ity if you didn’t follow his rules. He resembled my father too much for me to accept that.
December 21st, 2012 is upon us! We have heard quite an assortment of predictions, ideas, fears, hopes, and wishes throughout the year about the end of the Mayan calendar—from doomsday to collective enlightenment and everything in between. The diversity of opinions about this day not only shows the variety of souls inca ated on the planet at this time, but also the array of voices inside each one of us.
Do you get the sense that the things you would like to move forward with seem to be dragging, while the things you don’t necessarily want to deal with take a lot of your time and are slowing you down? Well, I don’t know about you, but to me it feels like this year is being a bit sleepy and hasn’t actually launched yet.
About 25 years ago, I attended a 45-day Vipassana retreat with enlightened master Ajahn Tong (“Golden Master”) Sirimangalo, who came from Thailand to Mexico to initiate a group of Westerners who wanted to experience Buddhist monk- and nunhood. You see, it is part of Thai culture to have this experience during your lifetime, even if only for a few weeks or months.
We all want to be happy. Yet my idea of happiness may be different from yours, and yours is probably unlike someone else’s. Although it is supposed to be the state of mind that we all desire, if you asked a politician, a scientist, a psychologist, a young kid, and an enlightened saint what happiness is, you’d get completely different perspectives on the subject.
As the year moves forward and time continues to shrink, more challenging situations seem to be coming our way, bringing many of us to the point of serious physical issues or emotional turmoil, confusion, and depression. It is as if we are experiencing the true density of 3rd dimension for the first time, and we are forced to take a good look at our physical bodies, their needs, and the reality we’re creating on a daily basis.
Did you know that relationships are ete al? They reflect the energetic ties and karma to be played out inca ation after inca ation, as we carry them along on our soul journey. In truth, we’ve been meeting pretty much the same souls over and over, trying to heal our wounds and learning to relate with love and compassion for one another, or at least enough detachment to break any toxic or painful bonds.
Whenever I ask people if they are in love with their life, more often than not I get a look of hesitation that tells me that they don’t ask themselves this question much. They have to stop and ponder… I understand. Life keeps us busy and focused on what we do and the people we interact with—our jobs or businesses, family, relationships, and so on—and a lot of the time it also keeps us disconnected from our feelings. I used to never ask myself that question because I didn’t want to hear the answer.